When is Science actually settled? I have a book, ISBN 0-932766-20-x, published in 2005 titled "The Earth is not Moving"?
It claims, contrary to Galileo and Copernicus, that the Sun and stars go around the Earth. Does that mean the science is not settled?
2014-09-25T16:25:34Z
I see that one person thinks it is not settled, so I guess others can claim that too.
The judgement comes when you see if the arguments are new, and valid.
The arguments of the book: p.11 “… Bible will be proven … infallible Word of God.” “Part II Mathematics-Liar in truth’s clothing.” “heliocentrism…with not the first piece of proof..” p 74.”… nor is there now, one piece of evidence..”
2014-09-25T16:33:48Z
I agree with eri: Anyone can add to a thread, write on a blog, write a letter to the editor, or even write a book. So we see the need for peer reviewed articles, so people do not waste time on junk. I read all 300 pages. The author is well reread and intelligent. But he misunderstands and misquotes science. His tone of desperation is eerily similar to that of some AGW deniers.
ChemFlunky2014-09-21T21:38:21Z
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Science... isn't completely settled. Ever. It's just... at a point where we can treat it as true. There's always the possibility that something we don't yet understand is, in fact, the case. The usual mostly-joke example I give is that, well, I can't prove that my desk isn't a shape-shifting alien. And that's equally true of evolution, AGW, gravity, germ theory, atomic theory, and so on.
I agree with eri: Anyone can add to a thread, write on a blog, write a letter to the editor, or even write a book. So we see the need for peer reviewed articles, so people do not waste time on junk. I read all 300 pages. The author is well reread and intelligent. But he misunderstands and misquotes science. His tone of desperation is eerily similar to that of some AGW deniers.
No doubt, anyone can say anything they want. At one time the geocentric solar system was the scientific consensus of over 97% of all scientists. They even had actual working models to show how the whole thing worked. However there were flaws in this models. No one was able to accurately calculate where the planets would be in 5 years. And even after calling the people who saw that the math supported the solar centric system, believers of the geo centric solar system still called them names like deniers and skeptics. In time more and more people became educated in the sciences and fewer people accepted the consensus. Hopefully we'll be able to repeat history and people will accept that the consensus has no idea if it will be warmer or colder in the future.
That is true to an egotist who thinks the world and all universes revolve around him or her. But it is not sanity. Sir Isaac Newton had a working model of this universe as they knew it and it sure didn't show the Earth as the central point. So way back then true science knew what is what.
Science is settled in peer-reviewed journals. Anyone can write and publish a book; there is no oversight to make sure the information in the book is factually accurate. No, the people who write stuff like that are not scientists. They're just nutjobs.